Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

I mean, HMON is still being worked on. But it is extremely worrying that it can't outperform essentially anything until it is too late to act on the forecast at this point in its development. You should ideally have a good idea of how to improve on an old model before you even start work on it, right?

Also, it is pretty impressive that the European model outperforms models specifically designed to model hurricanes.

Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

There are certain things over which reasonable people can have reasonable disagreements on whether the government should cover or take part in. Disaster management seems to be something that most people think should be addressed, and the biggest part of disaster management is disaster preparation. Some of this is pre-positioning supplies, identifying workers, and determining the effects of various potential disasters.

But a big part that has been left out for many years now is the forecasting part. NOAA's air fleet is badly in need of revision, and its satellites are aging, with their replacements years behind schedule. Worse, the supercomputing capability that Eric mentioned in this article is rapidly falling behind. Luna and Surge, NOAA's twin supercomputers, are ranked 74 and 75 in the world; Europe's twins are ranked 25 and 26, and are about 2.4 times as powerful.

The reduction in damage, injuries, and lives lost would pay back many times over the relatively small dollar investment to upgrade these systems to keep them in the forefront, reducing costs to government and getting the impacted areas back on their feet even faster.

Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

speaking as a floridian, spaghettimodels.com is really good

I thought that I remembered seeing how the noaa was supposed to be updating their methods a while back, but funding for it got cut

Well something to keep in mind is the Euro based models are also designed to track the North Atlantic and North Sea storms. They need to be able to give good predictions to the oil/gas rigs and fishing fleets so they can bug out in bad storms. Its not like all they are doing is dealing with day to day weather.

Makes one wonder if the more 'holistic' approach to storm modeling the Euro uses is better than storm type specific modeling that we see with the HMON (or at least that is my understanding from friends in Fla's version of FEMA).

Discouraging that a place that essentially never has to deal with hurricanes has better forecasting models than a country that has routinely been decimated by them.

I suppose the fact that their climatologists aren't being strung up as purveyors of fake news and risk losing their jobs over reporting anything that might might business interests could be a factor?

They also don't have to deal with NOAA's budget being held hostage by the climate deniers in Congress. NOAA needs more resources and funding, period. Their newest model might also be fundamentally flawed but they need more resources regardless. More satellites, more ground based resources, more staff, and more powerful computers to run more powerful models. It all adds up to more money, the money Congress intentionally withholds from NOAA.

Of course NOAA is the quintessential "science agency" and we have one of two major political parties which is now solidly anti-science. No doubt Texans will continue to vote climate deniers into office and then rant about how how NOAA can't accurately predict hurricanes.

Eric's side blog: http://www.Spacecityweather.com was a great resource during Harvey. Granted, I believe it's generally Houston biased, but that works for me.

Yes. We are primarily focused on the greater Houston area and Texas, but have been covering Irma because it is a) hugely threatening storm and b) shell-shocked residents are concerned about anything in the tropics right now.

Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

Not sure if this is the online modeling you are looking for but it allows you to advance storms by four days plus there is a ton of other stuff you can do with this, like looking at Carbon Monoxide Surface Concentrations, Sulfur Dioxide Surface Mass, Particulate Matter < 1 µm to < 10 µm plus a host of other stuff.

This is where Hurricane Irma and the other yet unnamed storm is today.

It's interesting to see that on the five-day forecast, the "average track" is actually better than any single model, including the European. Also at five days, the Official forceast is slightly better than the TVCN, which suggests that the humans at NOAA are doing something right. However, it looks like for the nearer-term forecasts, the Official prediction is *worse* than the Euro model, so the humans still have some improving to do. (Sample size: one storm. Take with a lump of salt)

Eric's side blog: http://www.Spacecityweather.com was a great resource during Harvey. Granted, I believe it's generally Houston biased, but that works for me.

Yes. We are primarily focused on the greater Houston area and Texas, but have been covering Irma because it is a) hugely threatening storm and b) shell-shocked residents are concerned about anything in the tropics right now.

Not to mention the administration's (and by extension NOAA's) attitude toward climate science.

Unfortunately, the storm forecasting of Irma is getting very ugly for us Floridians. If the eye is over water its entire run to the Florida Straits, its Katy bar the door. It's northerly turn then becomes the pucker factor. If it runs up the East coast of Florida, it will be over the Atlantic Gulf Stream with a ton of very warm water fueling it, but at least the heavy wind/storm NE quad is off shore. Goes up the spine of Florida and its not going to weaken much because Florida is saturated with moisture and inland humidity is insane right now and it will pull moisture up from there almost like being over water. Absolute worse case is it goes up Florida West coast with eye over insanely warm G of Mex. Gulf Stream. If the eye is 20-30 miles off shore, the NE quad and max storm surge pounds the living crap out of the Keys, Ft Myers, Port Charlotte, Sarasota, Tampa Bay, Pinellas County and Pasco County. With everything saturated from all the rains this summer, flooding with be epic and the storm surge with turn much of the coast into an inland sea.

Sadly, our weather prediction is much like airlines. We could monitor and route aircraft much "tighter" with a system that had GPS per craft, and communicated vital stats (trajectory, speed, distance) to each other.

We rely on overworked and tired employees, when computers could manage 100x more secure, planes could land faster when computer algorithms say so.

Like Tesla's "Autopilot", the human is still necessary to oversee and overtake. With this system, computers talking to each other, planes would know when the path of another may come "too close" and both planes could gently diverge.

Unfortunately, the storm forecasting of Irma is getting very ugly for us Floridians. If the eye is over water its entire run to the Florida Straits, its Katy bar the door. It's northerly turn then becomes the pucker factor. If it runs up the East coast of Florida, it will be over the Atlantic Gulf Stream with a ton of very warm water fueling it, but at least the heavy wind/storm NE quad is off shore. Goes up the spine of Florida and its not going to weaken much because Florida is saturated with moisture and inland humidity is insane right now and it will pull moisture up from there almost like being over water. Absolute worse case is it goes up Florida West coast with eye over insanely warm G of Mex. Gulf Stream. If the eye is 20-30 miles off shore, the NE quad and max storm surge pounds the living crap out of the Keys, Ft Myers, Port Charlotte, Sarasota, Tampa Bay, Pinellas County and Pasco County. With everything saturated from all the rains this summer, flooding with be epic and the storm surge with turn much of the coast into an inland sea.

Crazy that just 1 week after Harvey we're looking at a cat 5 barreling towards Florida. Stay safe and get out if you can...

But a big part that has been left out for many years now is the forecasting part. NOAA's air fleet is badly in need of revision, and its satellites are aging, with their replacements years behind schedule. Worse, the supercomputing capability that Eric mentioned in this article is rapidly falling behind. Luna and Surge, NOAA's twin supercomputers, are ranked 74 and 75 in the world; Europe's twins are ranked 25 and 26, and are about 2.4 times as powerful.

The UK Metoffice has just refreshed their supercomputers, so now they have the number 11 ranking machine, that is used for science and research, and the 42 and 43 ranked machines that are used to produce their forecasts for commercial customers such as the military, air traffic control, TV companies etc.

The production pair are essentially a machine to produce the forecast and a hot standby in case of failure, which I think says something about how serious a business weather forecasting is.

Also of note? NOAA's new hurricane model, the HMON, performed terribly.

As I'm sure you remember from your classes but many who have not taken Weather Modeling 101 may not know, it is not unusual for new models to do badly on their first few runs. Though they are typically "tuned" with hindcasts, nothing beats real, live new data to give a model the ground truthing it needs.

Now if HMON still underperforms after a couple more storms, then I would be concerned. But in the meantime, I am grateful that science is competitive by nature and the Europeans are determined to show us up.

We are in Tallahassee (Florida Panhandle). Already making plans to bug out if it takes the more westerly track. When Hermine hit us as a weak hurricane, it knocked out power for 2-3 weeks for most of the city due to trees knocking out power lines. We don't get storm surge this far inland, we get local flooding and tree damage (we are a major tree city). Problem for us is with all the rains, ground is insanely soft and trees falling are a big danger. If the Florida west coast track becomes predicted, plan to board up house Friday or Saturday and head either East or West depending on storm drift. I always have my work to evacuate to as well, as it is a monolithic poured building that had bomb proofing done post 9/11 (including all doors and windows) and has its own generator capacity (also is a priority power facility on grid).

Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

speaking as a floridian, spaghettimodels.com is really good

I thought that I remembered seeing how the noaa was supposed to be updating their methods a while back, but funding for it got cut

Hey Eric,Where do you get your model data from online? I find very few detailed sites available for actual model tracking data. Can you (or anyone reading this) point us to any real data sources online of the different models? Would like to see how they play for IRMA.Thanks in advance.

Not sure if this is the online modeling you are looking for but it allows you to advance storms by four days plus there is a ton of other stuff you can do with this, like looking at Carbon Monoxide Surface Concentrations, Sulfur Dioxide Surface Mass, Particulate Matter < 1 µm to < 10 µm plus a host of other stuff.

This is where Hurricane Irma and the other yet unnamed storm is today.

Looks a bit misleading. OFCL (humans?) "beats" ECMWF at 24, 48, 96 and 120 hrs. ECMWF beats OFCL only at 72h and at 12 h. Now the differences appear relatively "small" (except maybe at 120hrs) so a more detailed assessment may prove more useful at that point than looking at a simple index.

We are in Tallahassee (Florida Panhandle). Already making plans to bug out if it takes the more westerly track. When Hermine hit us as a weak hurricane, it knocked out power for 2-3 weeks for most of the city due to trees knocking out power lines. We don't get storm surge this far inland, we get local flooding and tree damage (we are a major tree city). Problem for us is with all the rains, ground is insanely soft and trees falling are a big danger. If the Florida west coast track becomes predicted, plan to board up house Friday or Saturday and head either East or West depending on storm drift. I always have my work to evacuate to as well, as it is a monolithic poured building that had bomb proofing done post 9/11 (including all doors and windows) and has its own generator capacity (also is a priority power facility on grid).

How do I read which track is which model/consensus? It lists the models top left but I don't see how this functions as a key?

Sorry, it was a throwaway post.

The 0Z September 2, 2017, track forecast by the operational European model for Irma (red line, adjusted by CFAN using a proprietary technique that accounts for storm movement since 0Z), along with the track of the average of the 50 members of the European model ensemble (heavy black line), and the track forecasts from the “high probability cluster” (grey lines)—the four European model ensemble members that have performed best with Irma thus far. https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/threa ... fying-irma

We are in Tallahassee (Florida Panhandle). Already making plans to bug out if it takes the more westerly track. When Hermine hit us as a weak hurricane, it knocked out power for 2-3 weeks for most of the city due to trees knocking out power lines. We don't get storm surge this far inland, we get local flooding and tree damage (we are a major tree city). Problem for us is with all the rains, ground is insanely soft and trees falling are a big danger. If the Florida west coast track becomes predicted, plan to board up house Friday or Saturday and head either East or West depending on storm drift. I always have my work to evacuate to as well, as it is a monolithic poured building that had bomb proofing done post 9/11 (including all doors and windows) and has its own generator capacity (also is a priority power facility on grid).

Discouraging that a place that essentially never has to deal with hurricanes has better forecasting models than a country that has routinely been decimated by them.

I suppose the fact that their climatologists aren't being strung up as purveyors of fake news and risk losing their jobs over reporting anything that might might business interests could be a factor?

Oh hell. If climatologist made the US Hurricane model, that would certainly explain it's performance. On average, over the next two centuries, it is expected to accurately predict US landfall incidents per decade /s . Obviously it's meteorologist who build these models, but the fields are adjacent and the confusion is common and understandable.